Educational Leadership & Technology

Well some of my students have been putting up a little fuss because they are reading Animal Farm for the second time. For the record, this is my ninth journey through this little novel, so suck it up. Many of my students read the book in elementary school, which I think is a little crazy on the part of the teacher who they read it with or the school that has it in the curriculum at that level. Sure on the surface level kids could find it interesting as a fable where some animals decide to over throw their tyrannical, evil farmer, but this only scraps the surface of the thick cream in this novella.

Many of my students read it in private institutions formed to help them do well on standardized tests; many more read it with doctor SparkNotes and his pal doctor Cliffnotes, so they understand the conventional read of the novel. You know the one, where Orwell is making his comments on the Communist Revolution and its outcomes. But even this read is still a small piece of what Orwell was really getting at on the universal level.

Orwell certainly was making a comment on the Communist Revolution through the allegorical tale of the farm animals, but he was also making the universal statement that all governments born through the sword will eventually fall victim to a small group of elite people. This happens in communist and capitalist countries alike. His idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely is the more important message to take away from Orwell’s Animal Farm. If Orwell were alive today, what would he have to say about the War on Terror in the US? Or what about the Iraq War? Orwell would see pigs and humans in the White House mingling together with the rest of us sitting outside and staring in and wondering what went wrong.

To the students who have read this far, congratulations… You have found the elusive extra credit assignment and learned something about Animal Farm along the way. The assignment is this — write a blog post about Animal Farm on your blog and link your blog to mine in the comments section.